Koh-I-Noor Hardtmuth Polycolor

The pencil

Polycolor

Koh-I-Noor is an old company from Czech republic that is common here in Sweden. The diameter of the lead is 3,8 mm and it is cased in California cedar wood. The pencil has a hexagonal shape. 

Collection craziness 

Polycolor have a total of 94 colors. They can be purchased open stock but I have not seen any place that carries them all (2016). If you want to buy them in a set, there is no one that contains all colors. The largest set is a 72 set. If you want them all, you also need to buy a brown set (of 12), a grey set (of 12) and a portrait set (of 24) and a set that contain number 139 (the only set that has that color is the landscape set of 24). This means that you end up with a lot of duplicates. It is a mess to try to collect them all. Another strange thing is that they have a wooden box set, but only for a 36 set.

Koh-I-Noor Polycolor 

Characteristic

This is a very soft and creamy pencil. Most of the colors lay down a rich color effortless that cover easily.  If you have sensitive wrist, this is the pencil for you, because you don't need much pressure. They remind me a lot about Prismacolor premier. And, as Prismacolor, they also break very easy. However, there is a sharpener that makes so much difference. It is a German brand called Dux that make this wonder of sharpeners. They also offer extra blades to change when needed, so you can always keep you sharpener really sharp. They are not so opaque so they are not the best choice for drawing on colored paper. They crumble somewhat.

Numbers system

Polycolors do not use a name system, or at least the names are not printed on the pencil (if you want to know the name that they chosen for the colors you can look that up on their color chart, however they have changed the names at least one time). I normally don´t mind not having a name, most color names are fictive anyway, and if they are a classic pigment name the company can still use the name as they want and not necessarily in a traditional way. However, if you only have a number system I wish that the numbers would make sense. In the marker world there are some color system that use meaningful numbers to describe colors, as the Winsor and Newton Promarker and Brushmarker that uses the HSL system. But if you only use Polycolor or use them very often, (or do as I do, use a color chart) you will of course learn the numbers anyway. 

The colors are also represented on the whole pencil and are quite accurate so that is a great help to pick the right color.

Lack of information

Koh-I-Noor Hardtmuth

It isn´t easy to find reliable information about Polycolor on the Internet. You can read that they are availably in 72 colors (because the large set you can buy is a 72 set), (and sometimes 92 colors). But if you count the colors on their latest color chart (which they send me) they have 94 colors availably. Also, I own a set that isn´t more then maximal five years old and in that set there is pencils with number that are not availably any more. Also it is confusing that some color chart that you can find online have a totally different lightfastness system (earlier three stars and now fem star system) and the colors (for example the white) has different result (the white has excellent in the current color chart but had average earlier).

Another problem is that you can read that they are oil based on some sites and other claim that they are wax based. I wrote to them and asked and they told me that they are wax based. I think that because they talk about using a special oil people will assume that they are oil based.

Color collection

Polycolor has a good range of greys. Warm greys and cool greys in a lot of different shades and lot of other greys in different hues and values. A lot of earth colors as well. Some of the reds and violets are a bit similar to each other, like nr 11, 177 and 178 that all are very close in color I think.  Polycolors offers a lot of blues, and some of them are also to look-a-like (especially the blue-violet colors). I think they lack in light sky blues and turquoise.

They have a silver- and a gold pencil in there collection, which is very beautiful and believable gold and silver. They also have an own blender.

Lightfastness

The lightfastness on the different color charts are not really reliably. I would recommend joining the CPSA to learn exactly which colors that is lightfast. When I compare the latest color chart sent to me buy Koh-I-Noor, thirteen colors differs from the result from CPSA, and they differ a lot and it goes both ways. Some colors actually get a low rating from Koh-I-Noor but does excellent in CPSA testing.

                      To my disappointment they had not tested the newer ones, which is quite many (in fact 30 colors). I am doing a test my self of these colors.

Holbein artists´colored pencils

The pencils

Holbein colored pencil

This a nice looking pencil, that reminds me a lot of the Polychromos from Faber-Castell. They are round, and the color is represented on the whole pencil. The lead is 3,8 mm. They are manufactured in Japan.

Characteristic

Holbein colored pencils is an oil-based pencil. They are quite translucent and they are not the softest pencils I have, neither the hardest.  They are good quality pencils with no breaking or crumbling. 

Different colors

Holbein colored pencils are available in 150 colors. I own 100 of them and can therefore not say so much about the full color range. But I can say that of all the colored pencils I own and know this is (together with Prismacolor) one of the brands that offer a bit different colors.  If you own a set already but want more colors this can be a brand to look into.

Some color testing

                      They have a wonderful soft white, that is the softest and most opaque white there is. They also offer a harder white. The set I have, includes a lot of pastel and light colors (which isn’t so common). It also includes gold, pale gold, silver and copper, as well as some neon colors.

                      The first color that I had to replace where, of course, the soft white. 

The most beautiful

Of all the wooden boxes I own or have seen, this is the most beautiful and exclusive looking one. It really has a classic look with a drawer (two drawers if you buy the 150 set).  The tray inside, that holds the pencils, is surprisingly cheap though; it is made of soft plastic.

Holbein Artists´ Colored pencils wooden case

Availability

If you live in Europe Holbein is only availably in sets. The smallest set is some different 12 sets and from that you can go up to the 150 set.

They have this very nice soft white (as I have mentioned), which is the softest and creamiest colored pencils I have ever hold in my hand, but you know a soft pencil like that will without a doubt run out first. And yet, Holbein chooses to only incorporate this pencil in there larger sets. If you need to buy a new one, you can only get it from the 50 set or above. The different 12 sets only include the other white. That is just wrong!

The lightfastness

One star, two stars and three stars lightfastness shown on the pencils

When I got the 100 set I felt that hundred pencils is enough. Most brands don´t even have hundred colors. The problem with this set is that if you are only using the lightfast pencils (the tree stars, that they them self has marked as lightfast) you only have 51 to your disposal. 39 have two stars and 6 have one star (and the four luminous doesn’t have any star at all). The lightfastness rating is Holbeins own rating. 

The meltz

With the pencils follow also a so-called Meltz, which is basically paint thinner. I did a small testing and compared it to a Swedish brand called Färgriket (the product is called förtunning), the differences where quite huge. Meltz run out and didn't dissolve the pencil as well as the Förtuning from Färgriket did. However the meltz are lasting, you don't need much. Also, I want to point out that Holbein is the only company I know of that offer this kind of product.

Holbein color pencil

Meltz vs. färgförtunning

Holbein colors chart one from the 100 set

Holbein colors chart two from the 100 set

Holbein colors chart three from the 100 set:  the luminous, gold and grey´s

Faber-Castell Polychromos

The old and well-known German brand 

The pencil 

Polychromos has a 3,8 mm lead. It is round.  

The names are written in reflective gold and very small which makes it difficult to read, but the color are also represented on the whole pencil and are quite accurate so that is a great help to pick the right color. 

Faber-Castell wooden case

Characteristic 

They are easy to sharpen to a fine point, which holds for a long time (compared to other brands), which is typical for an oil-based pencil. Some colors are on the harder side but others are softer.

They are not the most opaque colors, even though some can be more than others (like the permanent green, which is quite opaque) but I would not recommend Polychromos for use on black paper. They don't crumble as so many other brands do. You don't risk getting the crumble all over the paper and ending up on places that you did not intend. 

Confusing names 

The names are mostly too similar to each other, which can make it difficult to remember which one you have used.  You have a cobalt blue, a cobalt blue greenish, a cobalt turquoise and cobalt green (and a light cobalt turquoise and deep cobalt green…). It can be quite confusing!

You also have a lot of colors where they have a light version of one color, like the light phthalo green, a dark phthalo green and of course a phthalo green as an example. This might be handy if you are unsure of which colors you think could work together. 

I appreciate that Polychromos uses so many traditional color names, however, some names are not used the way I am accustomed to. Most disturbing is the Alizarin crimson that are far too red in my opinion.  

Not so traditional names are the three different flesh colors. I saw a YouTube film where a woman commented on the fact that they actually call it flesh. Skin can of course be of so many colors. Also it is a little bit corny. 

Faber-Castell colored pencil

Boring colors 

Faber-Castell have changed
the names on the colors

I have noticed how Faber-Castell Polychromos has become more and more common in the states. From a time when all you heard about (from the states) was Prismacolor, Polychromos seems to take over a bit. Most talk about Polychromos like a heaven sent gift. For me, who lives in Sweden, art supplies from Faber-Castell is in no way exacting. They are (together with some other European brands) very common and have been as far as I can remember. This might affect me, but I think their color range is a bit boring. Don't get me wrong, I also think it is among the best set to start with because you will have a great variety of basic colors. The set is more concentrated on vibrant primary and secondary colors and less on earth and grey colors. You can read more about this in my comparison between Polychromos and Caran d’ache Pablo article. Something very good about the set (of 120) is that there are few colors I think are too close in hue. Most sets can irritate me because they always have colors that are a waste. There are a couple of green (phtahlo green and chrome oxide green fiery are a bit too close, I think), reds, orange and violet that are a bit too similar. And I always think there are too many yellow that looks alike. But compared to other brands I think Polychromos are giving a good variety. I only wish there would be a couple of more exiting colors. 

The greys are in few hues; they have chosen to give us one hue in many values (warm grey from one to six and cool greys from one to six) instead of many hues of grey. 

Hard and soft 

Polychromos is on the harder side compared to other brands, but let me phrase it like this: for a hard pencil, it is very soft ☺. Because the lead is a bit harder, the Polychromos last very long. It took some time before I had to replace a color. The two first ones where Earth green yellowish and Burnt ochre, mostly because I worked on a larger piece that required these two colors. 

Lightfastness 

The lightfastness that Faber-Castell has on their pencils (in one to three stars system) are not comparable with the CPSA lightfastness. Of the 29 colors that CPSA have ranked as, let just call it what it is, bad, two are discounted. That leaves us with 27 colors, among which 17 of them are ranked with three stars by Faber-Castell! I hesitate for years to be a member because I felt it was a lot of money (and you have to pay more if you are not from the States), but I am so glad I joined them. I trust CPSA, but the test is almost twenty years old, so that is something to keep in mind. 

84 of the 120 set are lightfast according to CPSA. 

Read about a comparison between Polychromos and Caran d’ache Pablo here:  http://markersguild.blogspot.se/2016/04/a-comparison-between-pablo-and.html

Derwent Coloursoft

The pencil

This is the well-known English company Derwent’s relatively new pencil. Derwent Artist colored pencils has been around for a long time, but they have been heavily criticized for their hardness. Derwent answer the critic by creating a wax-based soft pencil that they call Coloursoft.

As so many other companies, the name on the pencils are written in reflective silver but they are written a bit larger then many other which makes them easier to read.  Only the end of the pencil is marked with the actual color. The core on Coloursoft are 4 mm. 

Derwent coloursoft

Characteristic

Coloursoft are a very waxy pencil. Some of the colors can feel a bit dry (for an example the greys and the Prussian blue) and scratchy, but most colors have a little too much wax in them and too little pigment, I believe (ultramarine feels very waxy, Lime green feels as it lacks pigment). A typical sign of that is how rich of a black you will have from a black pencil. Coloursoft do not have a rich black. It is difficult to cover a larger area with any colored pencil; that is not what colored pencils do best. However some colored pencils do better then other, Coloursoft is not one of them. Even with a lot of pressure they still look uneven (Brown earth is a good example). They also crumble a lot (not uncommon for any colored pencil). So far I haven’t had any lead breaking though.

They are a good choice if you want to draw on a colored paper. Maybe not the best choice for black paper, but it does ok (depending on the pigment of course).

Color range

The colors you get in the full set are quite a good range of colors. They have two different blacks, one brownish (called brown black) and one more greyish (the actually black), but no really dark black. Actually, the “petrel grey” can look blacker than the pencil called “black”, but it isn’t black enough. They also have a “white grey” (more of a light grey) and a “white”. 

The first colors that I had to replace where many of the greys and the pale lavender.

Coloursoft color chart

The wooden box

Derwent offers wooden box for the full set of Coloursoft. It isn’t the most glamorous box, but is nice and has an own little solution: magnetic locks.

Wooden box

Coloursoft

Lightfastness

 Of the 72 colors available 56 are lightfast according to CPSA. As usual there are some inconsistency between Derwents own lightfastness result and CPSA. Not a large difference (and the result goes both ways, sometimes CPSA consider a color more lightfast then Derwent) but enough to strongly recommend joining CPSA and find out for yourself.

Cretacolor Karmina

Cretacolor Karmina

The pencil

The pencil has a hexagon shape. The color of the pencil is marked on the end of the pencil. I appreciate how easy it is to read the text on the pencil; and it is not written in gold or silver, but in matte black, which makes it even easier to read.

Characteristic

As most colored pencils, this is wax-based pencil. They are very transparent; so this is not the best choice of pencil for colored papers, even though there are exceptions (ultramarine is quite opaque, something ultramarine is not know for).

                       As all harder pencils Karmina last longer and can be sharpen to a fine point. The hardness is most obvious the first layers, but will feel softer after a couple of layers. Some colors (especially noticeable in magenta) feels scratchy and are therefore difficult to use.  

All the same hue

They only offers 36 colors, which could be enough since you can layer them and create new colors, but it is always convenient to have a little more to choose between. However, it not all about many colors, it is more important what colors you have. In this limited range I find it strange how many colors seems unnecessary. They have only three earth colors: chestnut, umber and ochre dark (and maybe you can count ochre light as a earth color, even though I think it looks a bit to yellow). The Cadmium citron and Naples yellow are very close in hue, saturation and value and the Emerald and Moss green dark are very close too. 

Lightfastness

They claim to be lightfast (approved by ASTM) but according to CPSA they have a lot of colors that are really bad. 24 colors have a high lightfastness but 12 are inferior. Not so impressive in such a small set.

Cretacolor Karmina color chart 

Comparing markers and color pencils

A couple of years ago I read the book magic marker in which I learned that many artists use color pencil together with markers. I had, of course, used color pencils before (mostly as a child) but did not know their full potential. Since then I learned how I can blend them in a variety of ways that increase their looks, and how I can use them together with markers.

Markers and color pencils are in many ways the opposite of each other. Where markers lay down a flat surface, color pencils create a texture. Markers are transparent and color pencils are more (at least in comparison) opaque. In markers you do not have white, you have to use the papers white for that (or apply other mediums, such as a gel pen), color pencils have of course a white pencil. Normally you will be advised to work from light to dark in markers and from dark to light in colored pencils (even if many excellent artists don´t follow this). 

This adversely makes markers and color pencils the perfect match! 

Other differences between markers and color pencils: with markers you can work quite quickly while color pencils are known for being time consuming. In color pencils you may use different pressure but with markers there is never any reason for doing so. 

A drawing I made with markers and color pencils 

A drawing I made with colored
pencils first and then markers.

I used color pencils over a marker drawing, as you can se to the left. The color pencils added some fur and shine that the markers does not do that well. To the right a drawing where I worked the opposite way. I draw with colored pencils and blended (or rather melted) it together with markers.

A huge difference between markers and colored pencils are that you can use a variety of papers, especially colored papers with colored pencils. Markers can also be used on different papers but do their best work on smooth markerpaper. Also markers changes in colors depending on which paper you use and can bleed. The worst problems with paper that is not supposed for color pencils is that you might not be able to do many layer.   

Another difference is that you have more control with colored pencils compared to markers. Markers change value (and sometimes hue) when it dries, which colored pencils don´t do. Also markers can age, but I have never experience any changes in older colored pencils. 

Finally, and a very important differences are, that a marker drawing are never lighfast which colored pencils can be (if the right colored pencils and paper is used). 

Drawing on Strathmore toned paper with color pencils

Drawing made with color pencils on grey paper